A Survey of Modernist Poetry by Laura Riding

A DECLARATION of the independence of the poem naturally causes a change in the attitude of the poet towards himself. This does not mean that the poet ceases to be important; he merely acquires a new sense of privacy which his relation to the poem in the old regime made impossible. He shrinks from the strenuous publicity into which he might be dragged by the author-worship of traditional poetry or the abnormal sense of self-importance usually displayed in the official programmes of such dead movements as Imagism. E. E. Cummings' foreword to his volume ‘is 5' is undoubtedly inspired by a distaste for the sentimental display by which the poet has in the past been expected to advertise himself; and perhaps explains his tendency, the modernist tendency in general, to let the poem take precedence over the poet:

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an introduction to this book.